Hey, no problem (lulz). But it still doesn’t change the fact that all stats are made up. But with your exclusion of basic statistics, which are incredibly flawed in showing the true value of a player by the way, sabermetrics are fairly easy to comprehend if you take the time to, y’know, learn.

If you look at RBIs, Runs, Hits, HRs, and BA, all you get it the raw picture. Sabermetrics are a much better way of comparing players. This is why you get players with great raw stats that don’t help a team win, but you can consistently count on players with high sabermetrics. Verlander had great raw stats AND sabermetrics. A WAR score anywhere near 30 is absolutely ridiculous and directly reflects the primary reason JV won the MVP: The Tigers would not have even sniffed the playoffs without him.

He’s not worth 28 wins…however, for pitchers like that, and the Tigers system…

If they didn’t have Verlander, his spot in the rotation wouldn;t be taken by an “average MLB player”. It would be taken by a guy from AAA or something like that. Considering the carosell the Tigers had at the #5 spot though the year, do you really think a replacement player for the tigers would have gone .500? That’s 17-17 the Tigers would have played in games started by someone like Duane Below, Phil Coke, or Andy Oliver. Simply but, that’s would not have happened. I think the Tigers might have gone 10-24 in those games.

To me, this is one of the flaws with WAR. Its a nice stat that provides at least a basis for comparing players, but its not accurate or perfect at all.

You take away Verlander from the Tigers, they probably squeak into the playoffs in the weak division, but its a quick exit.

Kershaw didnt get any credit because the Dodgers werent that good. Halladay doesnt get as much credit because of the rotation he is in. Take away Verlander and replace him with another average pitcher and we dont make the playoffs. Take away Halladay, and you still make the playoffs. Take away Kershaw and well, youre still a bad team.

Your comment wasn’t Cabrera vs Verlander though. You said Halladay or Kershaw should win the NL MVP because they were better than Verlander. But the comparison is irrelevant, Verlander plays in a different league. All that matters is how Kershaw and Halladay were compared to other players in the NL.

The difference being, there are more than enough hitters in the NL to make a significant case for the award and the AL had a bunch of guys all in the same general class but none of them rose above to say they deserve it.

It’s going to be interesting to see if Kemp wins while being statistical standout on a loser of a team, Braun for being a standout on a team that was comfortably ahead for the last two months, or Pujols for being the leader on a team that clawed its way from doom to the playoffs over those same two months. I’m pretty sure it’s going to be Kemp but who knows what the writers were thinking.

Were there any of those guys in the AL this year that made any sort of statement? It never really seemed like it to me.

I’ll probably be in the minority here, but awful choice. I have nothing against pitchers winning but frankly if you’re a pitcher winning the MVP you should put up a legendary season. Verlander was great but I certainly wouldn’t mark it down as one of the best of all time.

Agreed. The voters/writers have a lot of explaining to do. This wasn’t an awful choice, it was the wrong choice considering the level and volume of play for a position player. There were three other candidates, who for their own merits should have won. Granderson, Ellsbury, Bautista.

I think part of the issue was whenever someone brought up the idea that a pitcher should win. The entire thing took on a life of its own and people started coming up with excuses as to why Verlander should win rather than reasons.

I think part of the issue was whenever someone brought up the idea that a pitcher should win. The entire thing took on a life of its own and people started coming up with excuses as to why Verlander should win rather than reasons.

Bautista, Ellsbury or Graderson should of won…pitching every 5th day?…these players play “every” day!!!..does Verlander hit…no…does he field…barely…does he run the bases..no….but hes MVP?…really?….Its the best player and most valuable in the league…not because you made your team better, or most valuable on your team..Cabrera has an effect everyday…Ellsbury and Granderson play premiere positions also…These guys have an effect on games every day and they are MVP players, fielding, running and hitting…all aspects of the game…This choice (and verlander is awesome) is not fair to the guys that bust it everyday…IMO…What effect does a pitcher have on any game who is sitting in the dugout the 4 days he is not starting?….NONE…is he “valuable” in the dugout eating sunflower seeds?…lol

Yeah I’m with you. Fangraphs did an awesome piece on Verlander’s season stacking his dominant season up against others within the last 20 years and compared to them – he wasn’t very dominant. It should be noted that none of the guys they discussed won MVP’s. So I dunno, this is kind of a perfect example of media hype taking a guy and vaulting his reputation beyond what it is.

Granted – the guy is one of – if not THE best pitcher in baseball. He had an incredible season. Just not as good as it’s made out to be.

Yeah I’m with you. Fangraphs did an awesome piece on Verlander’s season stacking his dominant season up against others within the last 20 years and compared to them – he wasn’t very dominant. It should be noted that none of the guys they discussed won MVP’s. So I dunno, this is kind of a perfect example of media hype taking a guy and vaulting his reputation beyond what it is.

Granted – the guy is one of – if not THE best pitcher in baseball. He had an incredible season. Just not as good as it’s made out to be.

I don’t know — he was a huge part of keeping the Sox in it as long as they were. If that had resulted in Boston squeaking by into the playoffs, I think it’s reasonable that he could’ve garnered more votes.

It probably did. There’s large schools of thought that a pitcher shouldn’t win and a player who doesn’t make the playoffs shouldn’t win. This seems to demonstrate that the latter is the larger category as, really, this could have gone either way. Had the Red Sox made the playoffs, Ellsbury very likely would’ve gotten the award.

That said, I’m cool with this. Verlander was a pretty obvious choice if you operate by the “should be a playoff team” standard and getting that MVP would’ve made Ellsbury even more expensive in arbitration than he already will be.

It probably did. There’s large schools of thought that a pitcher shouldn’t win and a player who doesn’t make the playoffs shouldn’t win. This seems to demonstrate that the latter is the larger category as, really, this could have gone either way. Had the Red Sox made the playoffs, Ellsbury very likely would’ve gotten the award.

That said, I’m cool with this. Verlander was a pretty obvious choice if you operate by the “should be a playoff team” standard and getting that MVP would’ve made Ellsbury even more expensive in arbitration than he already will be.

What a farce. These writers need to give their head a shake. Let’s give a guy who appeared in 1/5th of the games the most coveted award. I would have even been fine with Elsbury or Granderson, but Bautista should have won it in my slightly biased opinion.

What a farce. These writers need to give their head a shake. Let’s give a guy who appeared in 1/5th of the games the most coveted award. I would have even been fine with Elsbury or Granderson, but Bautista should have won it in my slightly biased opinion.

Jose Bautista should have been the MVP. Pitchers have their own MVP award called the Cy Young. Elite starters will ALWAYS be more “valuable” to their team due to thier direct effect of the out come of the game they are involved in. Which is why the position players have their own award and pitchers have their own award.

Nothing against Verlander who won the Cy Young and in his own right was the most dominant pitcher in the MLB this season, but this is a black eye for baseball and the voters should be ashamed at themselves for not thinking this through or perhaps maybe they thought too much. Either way they’re wrong.

Nothing against Verlander who won the Cy Young and in his own right was the most dominant pitcher in the MLB this season, but this is a black eye for baseball and the voters should be ashamed at themselves for not thinking this through or perhaps maybe they thought too much. Either way they’re wrong.

WAR for hitters has been around for a while and is based on four pillars: batting, position, replacement and fielding. WAR for pitchers is relatively new, and is essentially based on IP and FIP. I didn’t necessarily mean that WAR was an exact science, however comparing pitcher WAR to batter WAR right now is essentially comparing apples to oranges.

Pitcher WAR is sort of like calculating UZR for catchers, we have inconclusive research. The research for batter WAR is much further along than the research for other sabermetric stats…

lol BBWAA… I can’t say I’m surprised. Verlander had a fantastic season but there is no way in hell would I pick him over Bautista and Ellsbury.

There were voters that gave Bautista a 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th place finish vote. Ellsbury got a 10th place vote! Young with a 1st place voters (insane that he even managed to get any votes whatsoever in the top 5).

Yes I would much rather have Ellsbury who helped his team make the biggest collapse ever, or bautista whose team barely was over .500 over an Ace with no hit stuff every time he goes out who put the team on his shoulders in june/july and carried them.

The rest of the players on Ellsbury’s/Bautista’s team have nothing to do with how well they played personally. And specifically in Ellsbury’s case he (along with Pedroia) kept playing out of his mind even when the team was collapsing around him, so he played no part in their collapse.

MVPs put their team on their backs and carry them through the rough stretches. Look at the history of the MVP award.

Tell me this how often will a player put up bautistas/ells numbers? It will happen again next year and probably the year after that. When was the last time someone put up JVs numbers? He had a great season mixed with the lack of competition in the AL MVP race so he won.

Ellsbury had a .440 wOBA during their September collapse (the second best month of his season), if that’s not putting the team on your back then nothing is.

The last time a pitcher had a season as good as Verlander’s was, well… this year (Sabathia’s, Halladay’s and Kershaw’s seasons were all statistically as good or better), and the last time a position player had a season as good as Ellsbury’s was A-Rod back in 2007 (at least according to fWAR).

bWAR which I personally have always prefered, whether or not you do I dont care the point is you can pull up stat a and I can pull up stat b which are essentially the same only mine doesnt discriminate so much against pitchers and doesnt factor in defense to a HUGE amount.

Lots of guys work with the other players on their team, in fact Ortiz has himself said that Gonzalez played a major part in him finding his swing again, so maybe we should add Ortiz’s WAR to Gonzalez’s and make Gonzalez MVP?

There are flaws to any version of WAR you use (bWAR uses RA, which is essentially ERA in their calculation for pitchers WAR, so that’s hardly reliable).

Did Ellsbury help transform a sub par staff and stop every losing streak just about? Did ellsbury help transform catcher into an all star? Yes people help out others, but few do that and dominate as much as verlander did.

Right, which is why I dont really like using WAR, but since you did to support your argument of ellsbury I figured I would.

Point is you asked what else he could have done to be a MVP, that is what Verlander did that ellsbury didnt.

It’s nearly impossible though to quantify how much of their success is contributed to Verlander, so it’s really hard to justify giving him X amount of benefit from it toward winning the award.

Truth is, I don’t like using WAR (at least not just WAR) to justify how good a player is either, but it was the quickest/easiest way to compare all of the top players from the past 5+ years (it was that or go through 5+ years of stats for 5+ players each year).

Your first question is honestly kinda silly though, no position player can do those things.

He obviously couldn’t make up enough of the difference, but I think the fact that he played his best baseball specifically when the team was struggling suggests that he did everything humanly possible to get his team to the postseason. He could score and drive in all the runs he wants, but when the pitching staff is imploding and giving up more runs than he could drive in there’s really nothing he could do about that.

lol BBWAA… I can’t say I’m surprised. Verlander had a fantastic season but there is no way in hell would I pick him over Bautista and Ellsbury.

There were voters that gave Bautista a 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th place finish vote. Ellsbury got a 10th place vote! Young with a 1st place voters (insane that he even managed to get any votes whatsoever in the top 5).

sorry but a guy who plays in 21% of his teams games shouldntbe considered for the MVP. You can make the argument that if he doesnt win 24 games then the Tigers dont make the playoffs, but really what ace pitcher doesnt follow that argument? If CC doesnt win 19 games, the yankees dont make the playoffs. If Halladay doesnt win 24 then the Phillies dont make the playoffs.

Really what it comes down to is, there are guys who play their hearts out who affect over 90% of their team’s games in one way or another…to give this award to someone who goes out there once every 5 games is a travesty.

That’s kind of a odd argument to make. Pitchers, while don’t play a great amount of games for a specific team, also factor significantly more heavily in outcome of the games they do pitch in. There lays an equilibrium between position players and pitchers in game outcome over a season.

I agree with you in spirit that MVP is a position player award. But to call Justin Verlander’s win a travesty is a hyperbole or a sign of an intellectual blackhole.

bottom line is that while their presence in the games they played in is great, they still only perform 20% of the year…why not just throw out MVP voting altogeher from now on and give it to a pitcher who throws up 20+ wins and less than a 2.5 ERA?

In that case then Kershaw should be the NL MVP. Argument against him would be “BUT HAY HE DIDNT MAKE THE PLAYOFFS!!!” amirite?

Calculate the number of at bats a player gets, in respect to the other 8 players on the team. Factor in the amount of chances they get defensively, and I still dont think that one position player out of 9 comes close to the 21% a pitcher factors in every 5 days.

Calculate the number of at bats a player gets, in respect to the other 8 players on the team. Factor in the amount of chances they get defensively, and I still dont think that one position player out of 9 comes close to the 21% a pitcher factors in every 5 days.

OK, I’m a supporter of Verlander for MVP, and happy about that. But what the heck is with the next couple? Ellsbury and Bautista? Wha? Did all of the sane voters vote for Verlander so you have a bunch of loonies with the remainder of the votes?

OK, I’m a supporter of Verlander for MVP, and happy about that. But what the heck is with the next couple? Ellsbury and Bautista? Wha? Did all of the sane voters vote for Verlander so you have a bunch of loonies with the remainder of the votes?

Its the perception that just because you surpass a certain number of innings or throw a certain number of pitches you are going to eventually get hurt. I think it has to do more with preparation and workouts than anything. From what I hear, Justin has an insane routine and dedication when it comes to staying healthy.

A great pitcher at his peak carries a team to its first division title in 24 years. No player in either league was “more valuable.” Without this elite sportsman the Tigers are an ordinary team. With him, they’re a force.

Of course I am happy with JV winning it because he is on my favorite team. But I think the whole discussion goes back into making it to the playoffs. Pitcher or position player, the awards usually go to teams that make the playoffs. JE probably would have won it if his team didnt completely suck in September. Joey Bats werent in contention mid summer. Granderson has amazing numbers but a horrible batting average for a MVP caliber player. The Tigers went to the playoffs and without JV we would have never won our division, regardless of how terrible the Central is. To me that merits MVP status.

Um, you seem to forget that while a pitcher is pitching the true MVP calibre players are also having an affect on that same game, and every other game until the next start for said “MVP Calibre” pitcher.

This is a joke to the extreme. You cannot award the MVP to a guy who plays 1/5th of the games. He may be the MVP for those games, but that’s what the CY Young is for. He does absolutely nothing to help the team in the balance of the 125 or so games. I can tell you for sure, Jose had a direct effect on more than 35 games, as well as Ellsbury, and Granderson, and Cabrera. Hell Verlander shouldnt have even been MVP of his own team.

“I will be providing an explanation on my MVP vote later this afternoon on the Dallas Morning News’ website, but for now, here is my ballot”

Per Evan Grant, the guy who voted Michael Young as tops for MVP. If his explanation is anything other than “I was very drunk AND someone made me do it at gunpoint,” then this dude should be drummed right out of the BBWAA.

Even if his excuse is “I though I was writing out my Rangers MVP ballot when I wrote him in,” it’s beyond ridiculous. Young was about the sixth or seventh best player on the Rangers, much less in the entire AL.

“I will be providing an explanation on my MVP vote later this afternoon on the Dallas Morning News’ website, but for now, here is my ballot”

Per Evan Grant, the guy who voted Michael Young as tops for MVP. If his explanation is anything other than “I was very drunk AND someone made me do it at gunpoint,” then this dude should be drummed right out of the BBWAA.

While I do like the vote and think Verlander deserved it, I have to note that the fact that Evan Longoria received anything close to a 10th place vote consideration, let alone multiple top-5 votes, is laughable and a clear indication that popularity and perception play too big a role in the process. .244? Please.

Sigh. I was going to show you all the reasons and statistics for these votes but I have an exam in a couple hours that i haven’t started studying for yet. So all I have to say to you, is that you’re doin it wrong.

I’d wish people wouldn’t jump to conclusions that Longo’s BA is the ONLY reason I oppose his getting votes in this process, but the conclusion has been jumped to. I hope that anyone who disagrees with me about Longoria can tell me why his decent power totals and poor contact this year should get him nods as an MVP–as in, one of the ten best American League players in 2011.

Well, according to fWAR he was the tenth most valuable player in the AL (despite only playing in 133 games); he played his usual outstanding defense, had a .355 OBP despite his low batting average, and had a .495 SLG (.251 ISO).

While I do like the vote and think Verlander deserved it, I have to note that the fact that Evan Longoria received anything close to a 10th place vote consideration, let alone multiple top-5 votes, is laughable and a clear indication that popularity and perception play too big a role in the process. .244? Please.

nope…we didn’t forget he finished 2nd last year to an inferior hitter who got his club to the playoffs….said player this season wasn’t even consideration for MVP of his own team….no sympathy from Tigers fans, who STILL are pissed about the ridiculous George Bell win in 1987 over Trammell….

Cabrera was robbed last year for sure, I’m just trying to put into perspective the value of Verlander. How Granderson finished infront of him this year is insane. And hey, George Bell is the only MVP award the Jays have don’t take that away from us! I personally think Bautista and Cabrera should’ve been 1 and 2. Also the thing about Ellsbury, yes he did have no errors, but he only had 6 outfield assists! So the above average defence argument doesn’t hold too much ground with me. UZR and Total Zone stats still have a long way to go from season to season IMO.

Verlander had an amazing year, but there should be something to be said about a guy who is only takes part of 21% of the season. Hes arguably not even the Tiger’s MVP. Take Miguel Cabrera out of the lineup, and the Tigers are a complete different team. The only reason Verlander won, is b/c of Boston’s collapse. If Boston made the playoffs, Ellsbury would have won the MVP.

Die-hard Tigers fan here, extremely excited for JV. After reading the comments, just have a few of my own I want to make…

First, I agree that a pitcher should not be eligible for MVP consideration. However, the way it is currently drawn up allows for pitchers to be eligible. That’s the way it is. If pitchers are supposed to be eligible, then Verlander is hands down AL MVP. If they aren’t supposed to be eligible, change the rules. If any voter leaves a pitcher off their ballot simply because they are a pitcher, I believe they should have their voting privileges revoked. Blatant disregard for the rules, really.

Second, I don’t think the argument “he only plays in 1/5 of the games” really holds much water here. If it’s most VALUABLE player, Verlander most certainly is that. Regardless of how many games he plays or starts. Not only that, but I believe this argument could almost be flipped around. A starting pitcher pitches about 30 games a season. Only pitching 30 games a season, you are pretty much expected to be dominant EVERY single time out. A position player going 150 games can go in slumps. A couple 0 fer nights every few days, no big deal. Hitless in the past 3 games? No need to worry. A starting pitcher puts together a few bad outings in a row? They really start feeling the heat. Positional players don’t experience anywhere near the amount of pressure that a starting pitcher does.

The guy appears in what 36 games? How can that be compared
to a guy that plays every game, and therefore produces in every game. Verlander
had a great season and he won the Cy young award, but giving him the MVP award
over Bautista isn’t right, imo.

No Bautista and the Jays still are a 2nd division team. No Verlander and the Tigers don’t go to the playoffs. Verlander won the pitching triple crown, 4th in the last 65 years….Bautista had a nice season but it had little impact on the American League…hence the title of the award….

You need to clarify that. If Verlander gets hurt and the Tigers start Phil Coke in his place, where he wins even half as many games, the Tigers still win the division. Remove Bautista from the Jays lineup and instead of 81 wins, it drops to 61, which is a huge impact made by one player. Remove Granderson from the Yankees lineup and sub in Nunez, instead of 97 wins, it drops to perhaps 91. Remove Ellsbury from the Red Sox lineup and they aren’t even in a position to blow the season in the last month. They are out of it in August. That is what the MVP stands for. Where would their teams finish without them in the lineup. Pitchers can be replaced. They may not win as many games, but they are only a factor every fifth day. Hitters impact their teams 162 games every season. That is the difference. Impact players that can challenge for the MVP are coveted by every team in baseball and paid huge salaries. Pitchers play a huge role in the success of a team, but it all boils down to run support. It doesn’t matter if you are Cy Young on the hill pitching nine inning shutouts every game, if his team scores 0 runs as well, he doesn’t win, which adds zero value to his team’s success that year.

MVP voting every year is just a roll the dice affair. When the top players in baseball that help their teams win 90 – 100 games don’t even get consideration, there is something wrong with the writers. The MVP goes to the player that was the most valuable player in the league, not on one team. I saw it coming down to Bautista, Ellsbury, and Granderson, since those three accounted for more than 90 percent of their teams success. Verlander started every fifth day and wins – losses are based on run support. The Tigers score one more run, he gets a win. If they score one less run – he loses.

If you look at the breakdown of votes each player received, some writers showed their incompetence by assigning 5th to 10th place finishes for the best players in baseball that made their teams in 2011. Without them, they finish last, and isn’t that why many GM’s sign the Fielders, Pujols, Votto’s, Granderson’s, Ellsbury, Bautista types every year. They know they can be MVP’s every year, but unfortunately the writers don’t consider that and the vote totals reflected it.

All I can do is offer congratulations to Verlander, but it just threw dirt in the face of pitchers in former years that did more for their teams and weren’t rewarded for it. I am now expecting the NL MVP to go to Clayton Kershaw. If he doesn’t win it for the NL, there will be a grave error or injustice served, since the writers felt Verlander was deserving of the award in the AL over the top three hitters in all major league baseball, not just the AL.

I think it’s great that they are making it even, the pitchers that deserved it in the past won’t be mad, they probably will be glad the system is getting fixed. To me, starting pitchers winning the MVP it’s kind of like closers winning the Cy Young, perfect if it is deserved.

Sigh…okay MLB I’ve literally given up. If you give an MVP to Verlander and he’s a pitcher what in the hell is the excuse as to why Pedro didn’t will MULTIPLE ones? Ugh.

And I’m actually pissed Jose Bautista keeps getting ignored. Maybe if pitchers would actually throw the ball to him instead of walking him over 100 times he’d have “better” stats, but he was easily the most dominating and feared hitter in the league. No reason that he shouldn’t have won…ridiculous.

The only problem with the MVP is that writers vote for it!! Who cares what they think, they don’t know anything. Let the players vote. Its the fairest way. Writers have agenda’s and they think they know everything.

I don’t like the decision. If JV wins then Kershaw should win as well. He won the triple crown too. Plus he played in a team which didn’t contend. But no, Kershaw won’t win and Matt Kemp would (not that I argue). Voting is just based on hype. If Verlander had won 23 games instead of 24, I can bet he would not win the MVP. I don’t understand the writers since past few years making decisions like these.

Just because a pitcher won the MVP in the AL doesn’t imply that a pitcher should win the MVP in the NL. Kershaw had a fine season, but Kemp should win the award without any question, since he was the best player in the MLB last year.

So did Joe Bats and Ellsbury. I say this because both of them have similar stats, both won the triple crown. Actually you could argue that Kershaw was a hair better since he pitched for a non contending team. Its just about being fair. If two guys have same statistics and you reward one and discard the other, thats discrimination.

I’ll agree with you that Verlander and Kershaw were both equivalent, each around 65 runs above replacement.

Bautista (1.056 OPS) had superior numbers to Ellsbury (.926 OPS), producing 20 more batting runs on average than Ellsbury did. Ellsbury’s value came from his range. Fangraphs gave him a 9.2 WAR since they factor UZR heavily into their calculations.

So if Kemp wins the MVP then your argument about ‘carrying his team to the playoffs’ becomes mute then (which I think is going to happen). Joe Bats and Ellsbury had monster years too. There have been several examples in history where a player whose team didn’t make the playoffs won the MVP. Best being Andre Dawson in 1987 where his team finished last and he still won the MVP. I am amused by your attempt at sarcasm at best.

I didnt say it wasnt possible did I? Just that it is a contributing factor. Kemp/Braun both had better years than any positional player in the AL. Kemp could very well win but braun has the better team argument which the voters do put stock in.

Bautista and Ellsbury did have monster years but a true MVP can put a team on his back and carry them when they really need it, neither did so as much as Verlander.

Seems like the BBWAA is in need of some changes after this year’s balloting. Considering Verlander’s fairly weak opposition throughout the season (only 4 wins against teams above .500), and all of the great full schedule performances by Ellsbury, Bautista, and Cabrera (any of these players getting votes outside of the top 5? Really?), this is pretty embarrassing… like… Evan Grant embarrassing.

Yeah, that drove me nuts, too. If Cabrera didn’t win it last year simply because he played for a non-contender, then there would have been no sense in giving the MVP to Bautista this year, regardless of his numbers. At least the voters are consistent in that regard. This is an award for the most valuable player, not the best player, right? I think Verlander was the right choice, personally. He had an enormously positive impact on the Tigers in ways other than just through his pitching stats.

Who cares if he is a pitcher, the main thing was no other player was deserving.

Pedro had a better season and didnt win it because there was another choice out there, there was NO ONE who had a case even comparable to verlander’s.

MVP of the league should be able to get his team to the playoffs, it something the voters have believed for awhile and you cannot be the league MVP on a losing team.

With that being said who else would have gotten it? All of you people saying he only pitches x amount yes but he effects up to 100 games by going deep into games and he effects the games he pitches way more than a hitter does when a hitter hits.

So again who should have been MVP? Ellsbury whose team collapsed? Bautista whose team was 4th in his division? Granderson who had a terrible BA and plays in freaking yankee stadium with all stars at every position batting around him?

The only other argument that can be made is for Cabrera, however if you take Cabrera out the Tigers still make the playoffs, if you take Verlander out oh hell no. Take ellsbury out his team still misses the playoffs, take bautista out his team still finishes ahead of the orioles, take granderson out the yankees still make the playoffs.

Verlander CARRIED the tigers staff. Scherzer was good then struggled and procello was good but inconsitent, penny was penny, and our fifth starter was coke(a reliever) until we got fister.

Without verlander that staff looks pretty bad.

Verlander meant more to his team then any other player, dominated his competition, and carried his team to the playoffs. No other player in the league contributed more, that is why he is the MVP.

Tempted to tl;dr… but good points, mostly. Though you’re probably not putting enough weight to the fact that he pitches in the AL Central, with most of his wins coming against the Royals, Indians, Twins and Adam Dunn. If ballpark, weak surrounding staff and team playoff contention should be real arguments for Verlander’s case, then Sabathia should have gotten more votes. Also, saying that there’s no question the Tigers would’ve made the playoffs without Miguel Cabrera, well, kind of makes me regret not tl;dr’ing the post to begin with.

Seems like I agree with the general opinion of the people on this thread and around the internets, that it should have been one of Bautista, Ellsbury or Cabrera with the slight edge going to Ellsbury because of consistency and defense, even though teams pretty much stopped pitching to Bautista in the 2nd half (Hamilton won with a monster middle half last year).

Also, “Like”ing every argument “for”, and arguing against any argument “against” Justin Verlander within a 20 argument radius in a “Verlander Wins AL MVP” argument does NOT help your argument.

Add that to the use of “we” as a thinly veiled Tigers fan, and telling other people to “research and educate” themselves whilst ignoring statistics and history… well… sir… you’ve just earned yourself, yet another, fully capped and more collective *FACEPALM*

I like comments that say verlander is the MVP…oh wow because I wait for it…LIKE IT

I am a HUGE tigers fan. I dont care, when do I ignore stats? The only person I told to educate themselves was someone who said they dont know something, if I dont know what a certain law/rule is I research it….

I think comparing pitchers to hitters is apples to oranges. I think there should be 2 awards for pitchers, and 2 awards for hitters. Get rid of the MVP for only 1 player.

They should make 4 awards, and all awards are voted on by the BBWAA

Cy Young Award for the best pitcher overall
Most Valuable Pitcher for the most Important pitcher overall
Hank Aaron Award for the best Hitter overall
Most Valuable Positional Player for the best More Important All Around Player.

For instance, in 2010 I think we would have 4 different winners

Cy Young Award- King Felix
Most Valuable Pitcher – CC Sabathia (Yankees would have been No where without him)
Hank Aaron Award – Jose Bautista
MVP- Josh Hamilton

Young finished 8th in MVP voting…and 8th in WAR on the Rangers. That he was on anyone’s top ten is a joke. That he was a recipient of a 1st place vote suggests a gay relationship with whomever cast that ballot.

And a pitcher is involved in every AB when he’s on the mound. Verlander impacted 753 plays last season (not including inter league AB’s), including 250K’s, and impacted 45 plays on defense, making him involved in just under 800 plays over the course of the season.

That was a tenth place vote. A guy getting one tenth place vote is basically a writer saying “Hey, this guy’s not even close to MVP, but he deserves some recognition.” Grant gave Young his first place vote, which makes a complete mockery of the system. It’s the rough equivalent of those guys who leave a player off of their vote because, while they think the player deserves it, they don’t think it should be unanimous (Ala Cal Ripken’s HoF ballot).

There is absolutely no excusing that. It shows a complete lack of journalistic integrity and is effectively an embarrassment to the BBWAA.

Dustin Pedroia was top four in fWAR in the entire MLB, just below Bautista and Longoria managed to compile 6.1 fWAR , despite missing the first month of the season and there is no way in the world that the Rays make the postseason without him. Neither one of them got higher than a fourth place vote. Why in the world are you trying to hard to defend an indefensible position?

Are you serious? Young was easily the best offensive player for the Rangers this year. Just because he doesn’t hit a ton of homers doesn’t mean he wasn’t. The fact that you put Andrus above him proves you watched no Rangers games…unless they were playing the Jays I take it.

And out comes the argument of the uninformed. The defence has as much to do with those 800 some-odd plays as Verlander does, thus you could probably split that 800 number in half. Thanks for the insight though

And your point is? MVP isn’t an exclusive award. Batters have one. Just because causal baseball fans don’t know jack about it doesn’t mean it’s a bad award nor does it mean MVP should be exclusive to hitters.

I guess that Andrus wasn’t as good offensively, but if you add his defensive contribution he was just as important as Young. The other 4 were easily better then Young, he didn’t deserve to get a first place vote, and its hard to justify that he deserved a top 10 vote.

My point is that I think it should be an exclusive award. I think I made that pretty clear. I think it’s pretty obvious that Bautista’s numbers were given less weight because the Jays were .500 and way out of it. Value is value, i don’t care where your team finishes.

And everyone over a certain age would tell you that’s why your statistics are better off in a video game rather than affecting the actual game.

We can come up with whatever ways we want to represent things on paper, but there’s still just a significant emotional value in the game that isn’t put into numbers and people who rely on these statistics SO much make me wonder if they actually watch baseball.

Good call, that’s what happens when I’m multitasking. For Verlander though, you should also include defensive chances (not that he was good defensively last year). Still Verlander had more positive plays than the offensive players when considering the number of outs he recorded compared to a position players hits + outs recorded. I’m not saying it’s a direct comparison (it’s certainly easier to record an out as a pitcher than it is to get a hit as a position player).

just as much? i don’t know about that. but if that’s true, we’ll have to cut in half every defensive putout & error in the above numbers and cut into thirds every defensive assist. to be consistent, we’ll also only give half-credit for all non-HR non-K non-BB events

so if we take out Ks, BBs, and HRs (331 total) we get 638 plays in which verlander and his defense were involved. half credit makes 319 plays. add back the 331 Ks BBs and HRs and we have the new total: 650

now for the position player. half-credit for the putouts & errors and 1/3 credit for the assists gives us about 130 defensive chances for bautista

taking out BBs, Ks, and HRs (286), we get 369 PA. half makes 185ish. add back in the others and end up with 471. that + 130 defensive chances above + 14 SB attempts above-above makes 615 total

i don’t like your half-credit idea myself, but by your own suggested standard verlander was involved in at least as many plays as bautista

So what does statistical analysis tell you other than that guy did great stats? Nothing. At all.

Doesn’t tell you if the guy is not a team leader in the slightest (one of the criteria for the MVP according to the ballot) and that’s not something you can represent with your numbers. If you’re just saying “well this guy had a .02 better xRAP and a 200 point difference in his zWOMP so clearly he did more to help his team win”, what are you actually saying about the game itself?

Statistics are nice, but ultimately empty and distract from the fact that there’s a lot more going on in baseball than what ends up in the box score. Thankfully the writers have jobs that allow them to watch the games, and not just the scores.

it didn’t seem right at first to count the same play twice, but you’re right that plays in which the pitcher was involved defensively should be counted a second time. that adds 50 to his total

i think we agree that it’s really messy figuring out how much credit to assign each play, but it’s worth pointing out that, at least quantitatively, starting pitchers are involved in a similar number of plays

I personally wish there would have been a co-MVP this year in MLB (much like the NFL has), since Bautista and Verlander are both the right choices.

Ellsbury had a fine season, don’t get me wrong, but Bautista was a far greater run producer than Jacoby was. Ellsbury was only a little bit better than Dustin Pedroia (who should have got more support from the BBWAA in my opinion this year…)

“conveluted” and non-sensicle” he says in a reference to the uneducated. nice one. what did you find convoluted, by the way? that entire post is just counting

anyway, to answer your question: i’m just applying your own standard. we’re talking about involvement in events on the field. consider why you don’t give full credit to the pitcher for non-K/BB/HR plays (BABIP). because of the involvement of the defense, right?

and why do we use DIPS statistics in general? because we understand that hits+outs aren’t the solely determined by the pitcher, yes? the pitcher and the defense both play significant roles

it would be a double standard then for you to pretend hitters are the only ones who influence their non-K/BB/HR plays, which is what we’d be doing if we gave them full credit in this analysis

now maybe you want to assign a different percentage of responsibility for hitters than you would pitchers. i certainly would. but you’ll need to go ahead and make an argument for that. as it stands, the proposal to count all non-BB/K/HR PA for batters but only half for pitchers is self-contradictory

No, the stats tell YOU nothing at all…because you don’t understand or bother to comprehend them, and you are seemingly proud of your ignorance. Is this a common theme in your life, or does it just manifest itself with baseball talk? Anyway, nice chatting; it’s made me nostalgic for 1977 thinking.

Umm.. yes he does, it’s 1/9 of the at bats of the team, around 11% of impact per game on the batting box. Defensively, ignoring strikeouts and 1B it would be around the same. That’s why you can’t win with just 1 superstar player and a bunch of scrubs like in the NBA, and that’s why 10 WAR would be a monster player in the MLB even though his impact is 10 more wins. Do you think Lebron James was a 10 WAR player for the Cavs? and the NBA plays half the games of MLB.

I thought he was trying to say “non-testical” !?
although I’m feeling a little conveluticated myself after both sides of the argument, just hope you don’t think all us Canucklehead baseball fans are unedumacated
we all know to throw our hats onto the field after Bautista hits three home runs

Take away Ellsbury/Pedroia/Bautista from their team and their team does exactly the same?!? That’s utter nonsense and you know it.

Take Granderson away from the Yankees and there’s 3 teams with a legitimate shot at the AL East title in the last two weeks of the season (even with the Sox collapsing).

Again, Ellsbury and Pedroia did nothing to contribute to the collapse; say it all you want, but it doesn’t change the fact that both of them gave everything they had every day despite what the rest of the team was doing.

Take Ellsbury or Pedroia away from the Red Sox and they may have still been third but they would have been closer to 80 Wins than 90 and would have been fighting the Jays for 4th place.

Take Bautista away from the Jays and they likely still make 4th but they are considerably worse off, probably close to 70 wins.

In fact, the Tigers were 15 games ahead of second place in their division, so you could have taken Verlander off of the team and replaced him with a league average pitcher and they still would have made the playoffs. So your own argument works against you.

To be honest if the tigers lost verlander in spring training their roration would have been scherzer/porcello/penny/coke/random dude. They would have sucked. When verlander pitchers he has more of an impact than any other player(as does any pitcher) and he was always scheduled against the indians/sox when the races were right. He instructed his team, really helped out avila, and went out and dominated everyone.

Actually its harder to argue for verlander because of the small sample size. There were other contenders, just verlander beat them all out in my opinion and bautista didnt have a good enough year to outweigh his teams 4th place finish.

No, and I wasn’t trying to make an argument against Verlander, you asked if anyone could make a case for any else, so that’s what I did.

I don’t think Verlander was a terrible choice, I just think that given the number and the quality of the position players who were in the running, and given the history of pitchers and the MVP award, that it should have gone to a position player.

Haha, I understand things perfectly. I just don’t believe they’re anywhere near as significant or important than a lot of people think. They have meaning but only in context. You can’t REALLY claim that a guy throwing up huge numbers on a team that absolutely sucks is in any way more valuable to a team (those pesky other 24 guys who matter too) than a guy who is the best player who is somewhat lesser in stats but better for the team.

There’s a lot of stats we can’t count accurately, like how well is someone’s ability to take one for the team and sac bunt in a 1-1 game rather than hitting another home run in a blowout?

That World Series game where Pujols knocked 3 HR’s? Statistically irrelevant, but in the scheme of actual baseball? Completely and totally worthless as the game was a blowout and the last two home runs were wholeheartedly insignificant. It made him look a lot better than he otherwise was in the series, which was invisible. Taken in context, the numbers show. Out of context, you could get the impression that he was the third best player in the World Series which would be a laughable concept to anyone who actually watched it.

Stats are nice, when taken in context with an understanding of what baseball actually is and what stats can and can’t represent and value accordingly. That’s why the MVP is only a joke when you just give it to the guy with the biggest numbers on the most worthless team.

Nope, I don’t have a problem with pitchers winning the MVP. I do however think that they should be handicapped to a certain extent (fair or not), partially because of the historical context of pitchers and the MVP award, and partially because of the Cy Young award.

I don’t know if it is reasonable to look at it from this perspective or not, but most of the time when Pitchers have bonuses based on receiving awards they get a bonus for the Cy, but they don’t generally get anything for the MVP; when position players have award based bonuses on the other hand, they are almost always based on the MVP.